400 Watt Grow Light Bulb with 1000 Watt Ballast

by John
(Cali)

Can I use a 400 watt grow light bulb with a 1000 watt ballast? Overwhelmed in Cali.



Answer: In short, no- a 400 watt grow light bulb is designed to run on 400 watts....if you pass 1000 watts to a 400 watt bulb, it will burn out almost immediately (or worse). The last thing you want to do is start a fire in your home!

In addition, you should only run Metal Halide bulbs with a ballast designed to power Metal Halides. You should only run High Pressure Sodium bulbs with a ballast designed to power High Pressure Sodium bulbs.

There are a few ballasts that can switch back and forth and can power both MH and HPS lamps, but most ballasts power only one or the other. The newest items are conversion bulbs, which are Metal Halide bulbs designed to work in a High Pressure Sodium light ballast (or vice-versa). Make sure you know what kind of equipment you are working with....it's much better to be safe than to be sorry!

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Jun 03, 2010
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No instant blow up.
by: Anonymous

I've been using a 400 watt HPS bulb on a 1000 watt HPS ballast for about a week now. The bulb didn't immediately blow. I then put a 150 watt HPS bulb on the same 1000 watt ballast. It produces much whiter light than when running on the 150 watt ballast, but it still didn't "blow up". After about an hour I removed the 150 watt bulb with no apparent damage.

Added response: Please do not try this at home guys- the last thing you want is a house fire. Using the wrong size bulb in an HID fixture is just plain dangerous.

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All of the items that I personally use and recommend!

AffordableGarden Design&Setup

(10 week update below)


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Epic Nutrient Change



I suppose when you take into consideration how much money you save NOT having to buy food at the grocery store, it is surely cheaper to grow your own food hydroponically even with the cost of high quality nutrients. Nevertheless, I didn't have a whole lot of money to work with and I needed to make my efforts as affordable and effective as possible....and in the last 24 years I HAVE learned a thing or two!

As you browse through Jason's Indoor Guide, you will notice all of the systems that I use personally are homemade systems. As I got 3 or 4 years of experience under my belt, I quickly adopted a preference to standing water systems and systems that use expanded clay pellets or lava rock, because the media is re-usable and it eliminates a huge operating expense. So once a hydroponic system is built, garden maintenance is minimal- check and adjust the nutrient solution daily, and to change it completely every 2 weeks....and the biggest operating cost is the hydroponic nutrients. (and the electric bill, lol)...


Homemade Cloner



And, regarding the cost of the nutrients....I experimented for about 3 years with making different compost teas and nutrient teas, but there is still a lot of expense $$$ associated with making high quality nutrient teas....like kelp meal, liquid seaweed, rock dust, bat guano, un-Sulfured molasses, worm castings. You can eliminate a lot of this expense by becoming an expert at making high-quality colloidal humus compost, and use your properly made compost as the basis of your hydroponic nutrient solution.

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Produce garnden vegetables AND fish together. Eliminate fertilizer costs!

Besides mastering how to make high quality compost, learning aquaponics is one of the top 3 things you can do to increase your garden productivity, reduce your total costs, and reduce your total work. The product that I learned from is called Aquaponics4you. With all of my hydroponic gardening experience, the first time I came across the Aquaponics4you product I knew immediately that it was something very special! Place an aquaponics system outdoors and use the sun instead of grow lights, and you have reduced every garden expense to nearly ZERO!



The Same System/ 10 Weeks Later!




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